They are banned for the same reason the use of cluster munitions are frowned upon. The problem of being left behind after deployed during war time as they continue to cause horrific civilian casualties which is a huge a big problem for a country trying to recover from war. Particularly if they were deployed inside a country to defend what was then the front line or a fortified location like the outskirts of a town or village.

However if you find yourself in the unfortunate position of having an aggressive neighbouring country where you share a large land border who has broken peace treaty promises repeatedly and is repeatedly making threats about invading, then putting landmines along your border is a VERY effective way to deter and slow down an invasion.

I wish that we weren’t in a situation where countries felt it necessary to deploy landmines for border defense but here we are.

All of that perfectly marbled meat 🍖

Or increase taxes on the rich’s assets (including houses) to fund the silver sunami (i.e. the large amount of boomers retiring all at once) and therefore encourage more of the value generated to go to the worker’s wages. Then you don’t have to worry as much about the welfare state because income tax revenues increase, the worker’s private pensions also increase, more economic activity happens because more people have money in their pockets, and the economy grows.

Either that or work more people to death to keep expanding the current wealth inequality and hope the population keeps getting distracted with culture wars and fascism.

Please, he’s Pound-Stretcher Trump. Not even Poundland would stock him.

But can we just do it with the sticks and stones we were promised?

Nope they should have realised that even though they “own” this government, the president is communicating with a foreign server they don’t own.

Ok, but in general so can any organisation/institution become corrupted. So can your local authority or the upper management of where you work or the local school board or the organisers of your favourite activity club.

Your statement is tantamount to saying “corruption exists and is bad”. Well yeah, it has since people put a name to greed.

Its good to keep an eye out for it, but unless there’s growing evidence for the case that French courts have been corrupted, like how there’s now a mountain’s worth for the US supreme court, then it’s not being skeptical it’s being very cynical.

And your evidence for the bold claim that the French justice system has been corrupted enough to fabricate and enter false evidence and land a conviction?

What about evidence that french media freedoms have been suppressed so badly that every single news agency has been intimidated into not revealing leaked evidence of fabrication?

Send in the fucking Swedes.

Absolutely no shit taken by Swedish peacekeepers when either side of a conflict shoots at them.

It’d still be something. Bemoaning “oh there’s no point because it’s hopeless” gives these fuckers more fuel because the opposition is just etting it happen without any complaints.

It’d be like a cop kneeling on your neck and not bothering to scream “help I can’t breathe! they’re killing me!” because you’ve just accepted that they’re going to suffocate you to death.

(Deutschland by Rammstein Intensifies)

Some other German brand then? BMW? Mercedes?

Seize the German Tesla factory and hand it over to VW.

Show musk that the bite of his orange lapdog has consequences.

Sounds like a suit for the strong German unions.

Hey guys, please don’t pay any attention to the history of the modern Olympics (early 20th century) being started as sports day for the wealthiest of society because us toffs got scared about the formation of proper sports federation events allowing the peasants to compete in our leisure activities because they offered cash prizes making them a viable career so we made a set of games where the only prize is prestige hence why you get a lot of working-class background olympians selling their medals on eBay…

Don’t mind anything of that because for the first-time (and probably the last for about 20 years) we got a woman for the first time in charge! Woo! We’re so progressive! Please keep watching so we can rake in insane sponsorship money and bankrupt cities that host our overhyped egg-and-spoon races.

I thank you for the sentiment, but save your words and don’t spare the ammunition.

No it won’t. The FPTP will propel Reform into government if two things happen:

1. Badenoch (or whomever replaces her) fails to drum up support at the next election.

2. Reform manages to not implode into infighting and avoid a scandal that causes a collapse in support.

It’s not unheard of for one of the two major parties to cease to be a thing (See the Whigs, Radicals, and the Liberals).

Will Reform win a majority outright? I would say it’s unlikely. But I would bet they will receive stronger support at the next election as Labour fails to dramatically improve the wellbeing and wallets of the working class.

The same people who, after decades of collapse under Thatcherism, then neglect by Blairism, and finally being squeezed by Austerity, through their support behind Brexit and Brexitiers like Boris and Farage because they peddled xenophobic-flavoured Hopium.

They’ll do it again, because with the weight of the rightwing media serving up easy to understand slogans when these people barely have enough energy left for analysing political discourse and policies after worrying about the roof over their head and having enough food in their bellies.

For the Tories to cease to be a party they’d have to lose MPs and financial backers, that is unlikely to happen within a single election unless the Tories sustain huge losses.

What I bet will happen is that they get enough votes in this election to become the official opposition IF they form a coalition with the Conservative Party. Farage will use the opportunity to mold the Tory party in his image with a potential merger when they see their approval numbers increase under his guidance and then the next election will lead them to victory.

He’s betting that the conditions of the working class will continue to worsen due to growing inequality, that the refugee crisis will worsen due to climate change, and that his media friends will be able to manage the narrative long enough to get him into No. 10.

As much as I would kind of be glad that it’s all over and we can all go together… I don’t want to give the Catholic Church this win of “See! We told you so!”

What next: painter detained for 2 weeks as they tried to cross the US boarder for having paper, brushes, and a water colour palette as border police suspect they were attempting to paint illegally on their tourist visa.

Fuck off FT. Sure overall trade volume was not as largely impacted because, surprise surprise, the largest businesses could take on the extra complexities caused by the trade barriers.

But you even admit it in your article that 16,400 small businesses just stopped trading with the EU and these small businesses pay way more in relative tax than the large one who can afford to spend time and money to evade tax.